Tactical FPS Takedown Finds a Publisher

[IanDavis]

Tactical FPS Takedown Finds a Publisher

One year after a successful Kickstarter, Takedown: Red Sabre finds a publisher in 505 Games.

Back in April 2012, a group of veteren developers, under the banner of [a href=http://serellan.com/]Serellan[/a] and championed by Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfare lead designer Christian Allen, proposed an idea: make a tactical shooter in the vein of classics like Swat 4 and Rainbow 6. The plan was to use [a href=http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/355932838/crowdsourced-hardcore-tactical-shooter]Kickstarter[/a] to raise the funds (back when that was a novel idea) for a prototype to shop around to publishers. Now, almost a year later, Takedown [a href=http://www.shacknews.com/article/77852/takedown-tactical-fps-picked-up-by-505-games]has found a home[/a] at 505 Games, the publishers behind such diverse titles as Sniper: V2 and Cooking Mama.

Newly christened with a colon, Takedown: Red Sabre will focus exclusively on tactical close quarters combat. The single player/coop campaign will feature small squads in non-linear environments with lots of replayability. Meanwhile the multiplayer side will feature squad-on-squad action between 12-16 players, most of which will be better than you'll ever hope to be. Ever since the original Kickstarter, Serellan's worked closely with its community to fill that hardcore, tactical niche that more recent titles have abandoned in favor of a wider audience.

505 Games seems to acknowledge that coming from a Kickstarter changes the developer/publisher relationship a bit. Tim Woodley, 505's Head of Global Brand announced "Takedown: Red Sabre is a community project, one of the latest to be born out of Kickstarter, and the team at Serellan have already garnered a significant following. Our role in this partnership is to preserve and encourage the team's direct dialogue with the community while ensuring we leverage our global presence to grow the audience, amplify the buzz and maximize the potential we and the community of early evangelists believe that Takedown: Red Sabre has."

While Serellan's original plan was to develop for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC, 505 seems to be playing things a bit more conservatively, with the announcement only mentioning "multiple platforms". There is no word yet on a final release date.

Source: [a href=http://serellan.com/2013/02/serellan-partners-with-505-games/]Serellan Blog[/a]

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[Korten12]

Can't wait, I helped kickstart this game.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Well fuck, THAT is an interesting turn of practice.

I'll wait until I can watch it on YouTube before I decide to buy it though.

 

[MrGalactus]

There has never, ever been a non-RTS single player game that was made better with squad command.

 

[octafish]

There has never, ever been a non-RTS single player game that was made better with squad command.

Comment void by the game Hidden&Dangerous.

Also the sequel. Plus the S.W.A.T. games, the Red Storm Rainbow Six games (minus Rainbow Six: Letdown which we will never speak of again), the original Ghost Recon (and expansion packs), and Brothers in Arms.

 

[Kirke]

There has never, ever been a non-RTS single player game that was made better with squad command.

Comment void by the game Hidden&Dangerous.

Also the sequel. Plus the S.W.A.T. games, the Red Storm Rainbow Six games (minus Rainbow Six: Letdown which we will never speak of again), the original Ghost Recon (and expansion packs), and Brothers in Arms.

And also Star Wars: Republic commando.

 

[Octorok]

Damn! I never even knew about this, I would have contributed immediately.

Still, I've bookmarked their website. Day 1 purchase, for sure. I played the shit out of SWAT, I'd love a new tactical shooter.

Made my day. Looking forward to this one.

 

[Bvenged]

[HEADING=3]YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES![/HEADING]
I've been playing SWAT 4 annually for years now, and I have even been playing some of the older Rainbow Six games. This is FANTASTIC news. I'll be one of the first to buy when it comes out!

 

[DjinnFor]

There has never, ever been a non-RTS single player game that was made better with squad command.

Comment void by the game Hidden&Dangerous.

Also the sequel. Plus the S.W.A.T. games, the Red Storm Rainbow Six games (minus Rainbow Six: Letdown which we will never speak of again), the original Ghost Recon (and expansion packs), and Brothers in Arms.

Rainbow Six:

No, it was generally pointless to command your squad as they did everything you wanted them to do automatically. The only time where you could justify wasting the time to give orders is if you had a microphone and were using the voice chat commands.

SWAT:

No, it was pointless to command your squad as micromanaging them took more time and effort and was less reliable than doing it yourself.

Brothers in Arms:

No, the developers even realized that they had to pull back into RTS-style birds eye view camera just to make the game serviceable, but even then the action didn't pause at all so it was far more efficient to simply do it yourself.

Hidden & Dangerous:

Only game that realized that "doing it yourself" was basically the only way to go, so they let you individually control all soldiers. Still doesn't count as the game was not at all improved by having to individually control 4 different soldiers rather than just controlling one.

 

[IanDavis]

I believe the idea isn't so much the simplified "go there, cover me" kind of squad commands, but the "wait for my signal, then breach" kind of stuff that made timing and planning so important in Rainbow Six. However, all we really have are intentions and inspirations, so we'll have to wait and see until more actual meat gets released.

 

[octafish]

snip
Rainbow Six:

No, it was generally pointless to command your squad as they did everything you wanted them to do automatically. The only time where you could justify wasting the time to give orders is if you had a microphone and were using the voice chat commands.

Ahhh you see I mean't Red Storm Entertainment's Rainbow Six as opposed the games that Ubisoft ruined. You can control any of the six people in your command. I actually prefer the looser system from Ghost Recon (again, before Ubisoft ruined the franchise) because it flows better, one mistake in the planning stage of a Rainbow Six game and your operation is toast and the hostages are almost certainly dead.

SWAT:

No, it was pointless to command your squad as micromanaging them took more time and effort and was less reliable than doing it yourself.

Without the micromanagement where is the fun in S.W.A.T. ?

Brothers in Arms:

No, the developers even realized that they had to pull back into RTS-style birds eye view camera just to make the game serviceable, but even then the action didn't pause at all so it was far more efficient to simply do it yourself.

Nonsense. I never had to use the birds eye view, it was easy enough to set up suppressive fire without resorting to it. I did need to use cover fire and to flank when playing at the hardest difficulty frontal assaults always get you killed. A great fun application of fire and movement tactics.

Hidden & Dangerous:

Only game that realized that "doing it yourself" was basically the only way to go, so they let you individually control all soldiers. Still doesn't count as the game was not at all improved by having to individually control 4 different soldiers rather than just controlling one.

Exactly what Rainbow Six had done the year before.

Obviously these games are not for you, however I found all of these games to be vastly more interesting than the standard shooter through the depth added by squad commands and actual using some basic tactical manoeuvres. Certainly more interesting and immersive than run and gun or cover based wack a mole.